


Lionheart

by Beccaboo46



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-03-07 14:15:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13436505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beccaboo46/pseuds/Beccaboo46
Summary: She's lived in the commonwealth her entire life. Everyone knew the rumors of the Institute, but she never knew how close to home they would actually hurt her.





	1. Burns

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first fic! woo! Exciting right? I hope you guys like it.
> 
> (Don't worry she's only 16 in this chapter, it's kind of like an introduction to her introduction to the railroad.)
> 
> I listened to "The Fear" By Ben Howard while writing this chapter!

He was trouble, she knew it the moment she saw him. Trouble always walks in with sunglasses and a pompadour haircut. She could see him from her bedroll in the next room, he lit a cigarette and put it to his lips. Her brother and the man began talking in whispers outside the door to the house. Apparently, there would be another over-night guest tonight. One of a long list of many, always masked by her brother, always hidden. He never told her who they were. He always said they were just friends of his, or traders who needed a night’s rest. Traders and friends didn’t come in the middle of the night, and leave a few days later at the same midnight hour. Some would come back and work the farm, most didn’t. She’s not stupid, she heard the rumors among actual traders and farmers around them. They spoke of the Railroad. But, Jackson never talked about them, no matter how many times she asked him. 

“Don’t worry Charley, I’m fine.” He would always say to her. He’d rub her head, shove her a little and laugh through his nose. Still, he’d come home every now and then with burns he claimed he got from working at the Ironworks, grabbing some extra caps. She knew those weren’t regular burns, only lasers leave those weird lines. 

Charley didn’t know what it meant to worry, they had lived on that farm for ages without incident. They lived in peace, at least until the first courser showed up when she was 16. 

She thought it was just another one of Jackson’s “friends” who had arrived at o’dark 30. As soon as the door opened, she was met by a tall dark-skinned man, in a long silver coat. He shoved her back on to the ground and pointed a laser rifle at her head. He wore the usual courser attire, she’d never thought a pair of sunglasses could be so ominous. 

“Where are the synths?” He demanded. 

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about!” She screamed at him. He took a step forward, towards the worker rooms. She realized she had to stall him. She checked out the front door to see if there were any others. Jackson was nowhere near, he went to diamond city earlier that day. 

“Synths! You want synths?” She yelled. He stopped and turned to her. “I heard from a trader a town over, that his cousin ran into a caravan from a settlement near Quincy… that there were some of those synth bastards getting carted around there.” 

She made herself look as meek as possible, even though it probably didn’t help much. He walked toward her and held up the gun. “Where are the synths, I won’t ask again.” He clicked the safety and the unmistakable sound of a laser beginning to charge filled the silence. 

Until her knight in shining pompadour wig came. The courser kept the pistol pointed at Charley but turned his attention to Deacon. He stood in the door way, instantly threw his hands in the air and began walking towards him.

“Sorry buddy no synths here just bona fide humans.” There was no sign of fear on him, except for the slight bit of sweat that pooled at his lower back. He was out of breath, he’d rushed over as soon as he’d realized what was going on. He’d been close by. Right under that patch was a 10mm pistol. She stood slowly as he passed her, Deacon smiled at the courser. He put himself between them. Why he was here, she had no clue, but no one could have asked for better timing. The courser was a bit quizzical now. Then they all heard it, the sound of footfall outback. 

The courser turned his back and jolted to run for the escaping synths. 

“RUN!” Deacon yelled at her. Charley ran through the open front door and he followed her out. The courser paused in the doorway towards the back of the farm house. He put a hand up to his ear, and sent a message back to the Institute. 

“Courser designation Z7-66, objective has been compromised, switching new objective in pursuit of Railroad agents.” He lowered his hand and followed Deacon and Charley across the field. 

Blue beams flew all around them, Deacon did his best to cover both of them while running. Deacon let out cry of pain, Charley turned to find him crouching for a moment but immediately began sprinting again. His face was full of grimace, but he pushed through none the less. 

“Are you okay?!?” She asked him, her breathing was in quick unstable jolts. 

“Don’t worry about me. Keep running. Find somewhere to hide.”

Eventually the shooting stopped, they had crested a hill and ran down putting a lot of trees between them and the courser. It was a matter of hiding and tracking now.  
They ran passed a crumbling piece of the highway that intersected with the railroad. She took his wrist and ran them down the train cars. She stopped at the first car and tried to open it. The door was rusted shut, so she tried the next one. She heard thunder sound in the distance.

“Fuck! Great, a rad storm! All we need is a god damn Deathclaw!”

“Careful what you wish for sweetie.” Deacon said through his teeth, he was in pain and she needed to find a place to patch him up. The next car was open. Charley pulled the door, and it slid. She climbed up and pulled Deacon in after herself and slammed the door closed as soon as he hit the floor. 

He was nursing his arm, holding it up. She saw finally, that blood was soaking through on the sleeve of his t-shirt. 

“Let me see that.”

“SHH!” He yanked her down with his good arm and they sat back against the wall. She heard the steps then, heard him pull on the same door she did, to no avail. He was going to check the car they sat in next, Deacon yanked something from his pack and took her hand. He flipped it open and pressed a button. The world flashed a bit white in her eyes. 

“Just don’t make a sound and he won’t be able to see us.” He whispered to her. The door flew open and the tip of his laser rifle could be seen. 

He pulled himself up, checked left and right, and walked around a bit. He checked behind a couple of boxes before walking almost directly on top of them. If you looked hard enough at someone using a StealthBoy, you could see the field around them. Apparently, this courser could not and left them sitting there. Charley let out the air she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in. The StealthBoy ran out.

They heard the courser say something and then a blue flash lit up the surrounding area and poured over into the train car. They waited a while before moving at all. 

Charley turned to him immediately, he winced when she pushed the sleeve over his shoulder. 

“We can do this back at HQ, I’ll be fine.” He started to push up from his seat, she pushed him back down making him wince again. 

“You think Jackson goes to HQ every time he’s hurt? No, he comes home, I’ve bandaged more than a couple burns from a laser rifle.” She pulled his pack over and plucked the first aid kit from it. She opened a can of purified water and rinsed off the burn. He bit down on his lower lip to stifle his cry of pain, last thing they needed was alerting someone else to their location. After she cleaned and bandaged it, she shoved a couple stimpaks in his bicep and finally let him stand. 

He looked out the door and ushered her out. He was feeling better now with medicine running through his veins. Thankfully the only other opposition on their trek to HQ were some mole rats and bloodbugs. 

They ran for a few days, making sure they had fully lost the courser and were not followed. They finally reached the HQ in the basement of a Slocum Joe’s in the afternoon of their fourth day since the farm.

The Railroad Head Quarters wasn’t at all what Charley expected. Going on rumors, she thought she’d find some broken down synths and a few agents. She was very, very wrong. Charley and Deacon came in through a pipe behind the donut shop. When they walked into the main hall, Charley was taken aback. There were people running all over the place. Some sitting at desks on computers, typing away. Some of the farm hands from Charley’s home sat off to the side. “Only three made it.” She thought. 

“How many times have you searched? How far from the farm?” Her brother could be heard yelling. “Whisper, I told you all someone followed that day!” He was clearly hysterical right now. His eyes were blood shot. His hair was sticking out at all angles, it was habit of his to pull and twist his hair when he was nervous.

“They haven’t found her or Deacon,” Whisper paused in the middle of his sentence. “Or their bodies.” He finished his sentence and began to light a cigarette, when his eyes fell on the pair. “Speak of the devils.” That drew her brother’s attention to them. The room fell silent. Her brother began to walk towards Charley, but whisper threw up a hand. 

“Your Geiger counter, where is it?” Whisper asked Deacon.

“Mines in the shop.” As the words left Deacon’s mouth, the agents around the room seemed to relax from a tension that had been held in the room since they walked in. Whisper smiled, and Jackson ran to his little sister. He instantly grabbed her face and began checking her for injuries. 

“What happened? Do you need RadAway? Are their any burns?” He was spinning her around in his hands, as the man who was clearly the doctor walked over. She grabbed Jackson by the forearms, to stop his checking.

“I am fine, Deacon however was burned.” She moved their attention to the person who was doing his best to avoid attention. Before anyone could say anything, he had put on a nonchalant face and smiled at them all.

“No biggie, the kid took good care of me.” He moved the bloodied sleeve up his shoulder, to reveal his bandages. “No need to prod Doc.” Dr. Carrington rolled his eyes and walked towards him anyway.

“I’m still looking at the wound, even if she’s patched Jax up exemplary well before.” He nodded to Charley, then ushered Deacon to his office. Deacon looked to the ceiling in annoyance and moved to follow him, lit a cigarette on the way past.

“You did good kid.” Deacon said though muffled by his cigarette. He patted her on the shoulder as he passed.


	2. Just A Paper Cut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just an Op.

~Two Years Later~

 

“God dammit!” Why is it, that whenever I am with you, you end up hurt, or burned or about to lose your arm?” She threw their packs on the ground. They were in a break between buildings, hidden as best they could from the super mutants they attempted to clear out. The super mutants almost cleared them clean, from the inside out…

“It’s just a paper cut.” He said through gritted teeth. He was clutching the arm that the said “paper cut” was on, to his chest. The endless flow of blood added to the discoloration of the white shirt, mixing the dirt and muck of the commonwealth with a deep red.

“Deacon, it’s the length of your arm.” She scoffed at him. He only smirked. To that she rolled her eyes, she pulled a syringe of med-x and a stimpak out. “This will at least get us to Switchboard. From there Carrington can patch you up.” 

Before he could protest she shoved the needles in his arm and pushed them down at the same time. 

“You’re pretty good at that.” He winced as he watched the two droplets of blood pool on his already blotched skin. “Too good.” He noted.

“Oh fuck!” Charley yelled and grabbed the shot gun. Deacon looked up to see a mutant hound come bounding towards them. Charley pulled the forearm and loaded the gun.   
She fired at its head without a second thought. The thing reeled back but continued its pursuit none the less. 

“What the hell are these things made of?” Charley pulled Deacon up by his good arm and threw their packs over her shoulder.   
“I heard it was radiation, spice, and everything nice! Or maybe that’s Mirelurks…” Deacon trailed off the end of his sentence. She gave him a look to silence his quip.   
Charley fumbled with the bullets in her waist band and pulled two more from her back pocket. She missed the sockets to load the gun a few times before finally shoving both bullets in. She cocked the hammer and waited until she could feel the ground shake under the hound’s weight. She pulled the trigger just as it lunged for them. The shot did in fact blow its head off that time. They both let out the air held inside their chests and began to check their packs thinking they were safe. The fear once again manifested in the silence that followed, when they both heard the unmistakable beeping sound. 

“Suicider.” Deacon whispered almost to himself, just as the mutant crested the side of the building. “Run!” He yelled at her, though it didn’t matter, she’d already left him in the dust as soon as she heard it. 

 

They caught their breath at a weigh station on the tracks. Up the stairs she found a couple of skeletons laid on a mattress. She hauled them both by the rib cages and tossed them out the door. Deacon had just hit the top of the stairs when the bones flew by. 

“Tibia, or not tibia? That is the question.” He said when he leaned in on the door frame.

“Sit down so I can clean you up more.” Charley barked at him. Deacon’s eyes widened in fabricated annoyance. He sat down on the dingy, browning mattress. It had obviously been in the elements for too long. 

“So bossy today, where’s this coming from?” He grumbled at her, knowing it would irk her. Instead of responding to him, she continued in her bag until she pulled out some clean cloths and purified water. 

“Take your shirt off.” She said as she poured the water onto the cloth. 

“Buy me dinner first, ma’am.” He chided but removed his shirt anyway while laughing.

Charley took a deep breath and bit down on the inside of her lip.

“Why must you insist on driving me insane?” 

Deacon only laughed. Charley crushed up some rad-x and mixed it into the cloth as well. Then, she wrapped the cloth up and around his arm, letting it hang like a sling around his shoulder. She could see him about to protest it. “Just for tonight, until we get to Switch. I don’t want it getting infected or broken beyond repair.” Deacon had learned at this point, not to fight with her when it came to health and safety. She was the police chief of it. 

“Fine, but I’ll be good to go by morning, we can go finish those mutties off.” He laid back on the mattress and used his good arm as a pillow. Charley just stared down at him, her lips were pressed tightly together, and she leered at him with her eyes. 

“You’re joking right?” She scoffed and laid beside him. She turned over on her side away from him. “You’ve got first watch by the way.” She said, and that was that. 

Deacon sat back up and smiled at her. “Yea, yea miss bossy. You should have picked that as your code name.” He stood and went out the door to watch the horizon. “How exactly am I supposed to shoot if I don’t have an arm?”

“You’ll figure it out.” She mumbled, already half asleep. It had been a long day, she had carried their packs and their asses since Deacon was out of commission. 

He didn’t need to figure it out, they were in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but plains around them. The night sky was lit up in the direction of Diamond city. Green tinted light, blocked out the stars. Nothing but the wind and very distant shooting could be heard. 

Instead, he just listened to her quiet snoring in the room behind him and watched the plain as the night ran on. Deacon hated partnering up, especially since Jax died. But this was Jax’s little sister, so he checked in with her every now and then. Apparently, he’d become more of a hinderance than any kind of help. He decided to leave her alone for a while after this job, at least until his worry ate away at him. 

 

When the sun rose, and he nudged Charley awake, she yelled at him again for not waking her to take a shift. She eventually got over it and pulled their packs on her back once again. They managed to make their way back to switchboard in one piece this time. She shoved Deacon towards Carrington’s office, and went to debrief Dez and Whisper. 

Deacon didn’t put up his usual fight he just sauntered over to the medical chair and let Carrington, poke and prod. 

“I see you, at least fared well with our green neighbors.” Whisper chided. 

“We managed to clear out most of them, might wanna send Glory in for the stragglers and their hounds.” She threw Deacon’s pack on his desk. “Oh, and tell Deacon to bother somebody else on their jobs.” She continued towards the back area and found the mattress she called home. After emptying her bag, she pulled out her pack of cigarettes and the flip lighter she rescued from a desk. She lit the cigarette and took a drag. Lots of agents were out on their separate missions, HQ was missing its usual rock and roll. 

“Must me a slow day.” She muttered to herself. 

“Lionheart!” Tinker yelled, he had clearly been looking for her, his eyes lit up with validation when he saw her. It was moments like these she missed living on the farm. No one to bother you, nothing to do except literally watch the grass grow.

“What do you need T?”

“So listen, I’ve been working on this theory…” 

“Oh lord here we go.” She thought to herself as Tom went over some fraction of a theory relating to institute technologies in the food we eat out in the commonwealth. Charley just nodded her head and smiled while tom talked himself out. He finally said goodbye on her seventh cigarette. She shoved it face down in her ash tray and collapsed on her mattress for a nap.

 

Deacon showed Carrington he could move his arm enough to be sent back in the field. He went over to the testing range for Tinker’s mods and shot his rifle to reassure the doctor. Carrington huffed out something and moved on to “more important matters” according to himself. 

Deacon began to preform arm circles as he walked off toward his desk to stretch out the tense muscles. He picked up his pack with his good arm and threw it underneath. Deacon sat and whirled around in his chair before settling down to listen in on some dead drops for his communication lines. He had one from Mr. Man, two from Stockton, and another from his Diamond City contact: Peanuts. Each of the three threw in some interesting bits of information about who’s eyes were lingering on packages longer than they should be, or someone was in the wrong place at precisely the right time. It was getting more and more evident to Deacon there was a mole among them. 

God forbid you bring it up to Dez though. If P.A.M. didn’t think it plausible, then it was an irrelevant topic. And with the four times Deacon brought it up, four times PAM shot it down. She was a statistical machine that can’t have gut feelings, but Deacon is a human that can. He brought the issue up to Whispers and both decided to run an op behind Dez’s back. Thus far nothing has come up, whoever the plant is, has done their job without a hitch. 

But everyone messes up sometime. Deacon knows that better than anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know of anything you find that needs a good edit!


End file.
